Archangel's Heart (The Guild Hunter, #9) (Berkley Prime Crime)

by Nalini Singh

[EBookObsessed]

I always love me some Nalini Singh, no question. Yet, this story lacks the excitement of most of the novels in the Guild Hunter series.

I guess every novel can’t be a city destroying battle between archangels like Archangel’s Blood or Archangel’s Legion. While there are interesting revelations and lots to push the series forward, this meeting of the Cadre lacks the danger and excitement of the prior stories.

We start two years since the awaken of the ancient Archangel, Alexander. Everyone is simply waiting for the other shoe to drop. Lijuan hasn’t been seen since her attack on New York but does that mean she is biding her time or has the ancient gone to sleep. When news surfaces that there has been unchecked attacks of blood lust by the vampires in China, the only group with the authority to force the Cadre to meet sends out missives to all the archangels. Even the archangels cannot ignore the request of the group of angels known as the Luminata. If they refuse, their territory would be forfeited.

The Luminata are a weird, creepy group with a sense of entitlement which, of course, will not go over well with the Cadre of entitled archangels. They are monk-like individuals searching for enlightenment and hoarding great works of art and literature and there is a big question of whether they are all their seeking a higher sense of being or just as a search for power over others.

Raphael and Elena, accompanied only by Aodhan arrive at the compound outside Morocco. Morocco is where Elena believes that her grandparents were from and plans on searching the vast library at in Lumia and the surrounding towns for information about the woman with coloring and hair like Elena. Elena uncovers more than she bargained for. Meanwhile the Cadre are trying to determine if it is time to step in and take over China from the absent archangel.

While this story lacks excitement, we do see changes coming to the series. We also get to spend time getting to know Aodhan better and hopefully that means that we will get an Aodhan story shortly.

The Cascade is still effecting the world, especially with twelve archangels awake. Raphael can’t control the healing ability or the white fire that he received but we still see sparks of it still. We also see that his bond with Elena strengthens these abilities. I also noted little bits here and there which seem to indicate that Elena might be gaining angel abilities at a faster rate than should be expected of her, not the speed or strength of Raphael, but there are many comments that Elena is a baby by angel terms yet her abilities are gaining rapidly and that I believe might be trickling down from her bond with Raphael. That will show that Elena might no longer be Raphael’s weakness for much longer.

Sadly, there wasn’t even much in the way of sexy, naked time with the hot archangel since they were in creep central and kept feeling like they were being watched.

This is a story written more for series fans than to grab new ones. If you are new and want to know what the fuss is about, grab Archangel’s Blood or jump to Archangel’s Legion for more excitement.

I started reading my ARC copy but shortly after received an audiobook copy from Tantor Audio. Since I originally binged on this series by audiobook, I was happy to make the jump over to audiobook since I missed the narration on the last few books.